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It's not just skills, it's the supply chain surrounding the manufacturing. There's several articles you can find with a quick Google search about how Apple had
by magduf 7y ago
It's not just skills, it's the supply chain surrounding the manufacturing. There's several articles you can find with a quick Google search about how Apple had so much trouble finding a source for small screws for the Mac in the USA, whereas in China it was trivial to find a supplier that could provide the massive quantities needed. So building the thing in the USA will probably end up costing a lot more, not just because of US labor rates at the final assembly factory (which probably isn't that much of a factor really), but because all the logistics leading up to that point in the manufacture are now so much less efficient.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoAnd this is in Austin, which used to be the ideal place to make PCs only 15 years ago because of DELL and its famous “just in time” suppliers.
- linuxftw 7y agoYeah, it's almost like trade deals completely decimated domestic manufacturing the last 3 decades and it's impossible to build things here because everything already moved overseas. All the 'little screw' suppliers went overseas or went out of business because their customers went overseas.
- genericone 7y agoApple announcing they will continue to build mac pros in the USA is their signal to suppliers that they should follow them back to the USA. If the incentive to small-parts suppliers is good and the reverberating feedback are strong enough (small-suppliers bringing large suppliers, large suppliers bringing more small suppliers, rinse repeat), it'll lead other manufacturers to come back. If automation is going to take over labor, then location and labor-wages will matter less than supply-chain and the regulatory environment. If USA can get back the supply-chain, the USA rule-of-law environment, is probably preferable to China's rule-by-law environment.
- linuxftw 7y agoI don't disagree. My comment was related to the notion of 'oh you can't just build things here' premise that I responded to.
- nerfhammer 7y agoUS manufacturing output has doubled in the last 3 decades: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-output-has-doubled-in-three-decades-2016-03-28 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-outp...
- Godel_unicode 7y agoIt's also important to measure the amount of stuff made; US factories not only produce more expensive products but they produce more of them. This is particularly true of durable goods. From parents article: """The production of electronics, aerospace goods, motor vehicles and machinery are at or close to all-time highs.""'
- linuxftw 7y agoI don't buy it. Those stats must be including things assembled or repackaged in the US. Almost everything I own is made overseas. Computers, appliances, furniture, clothing. It's also not clear if these statistics are subject to the same types of laws as claiming something is 'made in America'. If I buy a box of parts from offshore and assemble and end product out of those parts, is that made in the US according to those stats?
- matwood 7y agoBut, it only takes one big company like Apple to move some production and companies will start to pop up again. Smaller companies are also bringing manufacturing back to the US. I've listened to podcasts where the https://originmaine.com https://originmaine.com owner discusses the local supply chain of leather and other material in order make clothing like jeans and boots.
- Qwertystop 7y agoLeather has the advantage that one animal produces multiple things -- US beef and milk production produces leather as a byproduct. If people want local beef and milk, there's also going to be local leather. Leather keeps better than meat, so as long as the demand for beef (measured in cows) exceeds the demand for bovine leather (also measured in cows), stocks go up and prices go down until someone decides a local supply chain is worthwhile (or until someone decides it's not worth it to pay for the warehouse for unsold leather).
- iyn 7y agoFYI: animals don’t “produce” leather, it’s their skin. It always surprises me how humans collectively “mechanize” nature, so it’s easier to rationalize exploiting it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hollerith 7y agoHow would you have phrased his "US beef and milk production produces leather as a byproduct"?
- whenchamenia 7y agoWe similarly mechanize the growing of organisims in their own biodegraded guts and eat them afterward. Everything sounds grusome when you frame it that way. Being an apex predator comes with advantages as well as responsibilities to best utilize ourselves as we nessarily consume other organisms and not dirt.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]